From the Archives: Trump’s Knucklehead Son’s Advice on Russia, E-mails, Mugshots, and More

Few Twitter users can match the half-intelligible dribble of tweets put forth on a semi-regular basis by Donald Trump, but his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., has done his best. Donny Jr. has spent much of the past eight years tweeting about a number of things; that was no different on Tuesday, after two New York Times reports over the weekend revealed that the younger Trump had attended a meeting with a Kremlin-connected Russian attorney, alongside Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, seeking damaging information about Hillary Clinton, just after Trump clinched the G.O.P. presidential nomination.

On Tuesday, the eldest Trump son took to Twitter to publish screenshots of his e-mail exchange with Rob Goldstone, a publicist linked to the Trump family through the Miss Universe pageant who said he set up the meeting on behalf of a Russian client who had received “official documents and information that would incriminate Hillary and her dealings with Russia and would be very useful to your father.” Goldstone went on to note, “This is obviously very high level and sensitive information but is part of Russia and its government’s support for Mr. Trump.” Trump Jr. wrote back, “if it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”

In a statement, Trump Jr. wrote that he was releasing the e-mail exchange in order to be “totally transparent.” In fact, as The New York Times noted in the story it published just minutes after Trump Jr.’s tweets, the president’s son had merely sought to preempt the Times story with his own spin.

It remains unclear whether Donny will face any consequences for effectively admitting he sought campaign assistance from the Russian government. But it’s certainly not the first time that he has exposed what probably should have been private thoughts on Twitter. In light of his tweets, The Hive has dug through the official @donaldjtrumpjr feed to unearth now-prescient tweets on a number of subjects, including Russia, Hillary Clinton, and, yes, e-mails.